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Sow and Tether – Nothing But The Blood (Interview & Music Video)

Recently, I spoke to Hunter Bobo and Kyle Segars of the Mississippi based worship band, Sow and Tether. Here’s what they had to say about the band, their future EP and the release of their new music video ‘Nothing But The Blood’.

Ok, so first off, how did the band form?

Hunter: We basically formed because me, Kyle, and Phill all played in a metalcore type band, but I’d been writing a few worship songs. It wasn’t really a part of anything, I wrote them just to write them. Then we all ended up at the same church, and we were like, “Let’s do this.” It was like “Hey I sing, one of you plays guitar, one plays bass and another plays drums,” so we started on that and things kinda formed through our local church. Now we’ve just been writing and doing whatever we can ever since.

So do you guys still play any metalcore?

Hunter: The band that we were in, called Parallels, never actually broke up. We just kinda stopped playing. So, yeah I don’t really know what happened there. We still have 80% of an album recorded that we might finish one day, haha!

What made you settle on the name Sow & Tether?

Hunter: I essentially came up with the name because last year, as our church went through the book of Mark, I noticed that a lot of stuff in the very basis of the gospel reflects the fact that those two words really signify our lives as believers. By that, I mean Jesus binds us to Himself – AKA “tether” – and He sows within us His goodness; nothing we can do is good [but] that only He can do good. He sows within us His seed and He sanctifies us. Those two words, overall to me, are two words that signify the life of a believer.

So you guys lead the worship at your church?

Hunter: We do, every week.

So what have you guys got planned for summer?

Hunter: As of right now we’re writing, we’re trying to finish up preproduction for all the songs for our EP. In August, we’ll be heading up to Nashville, TN to start tracking our 6 or 7 song debut EP. So that’s what’s on our immediate agenda. We’ve got marketing plans to work out, and a lot of funding to work out for the recording and distribution process. But that’s the plan right now, just to keep writing, get the songs to where they need to be for recording, raise the money, and then go up there and do that.

So this song, Nothing But The Blood, will that be on the EP?

Hunter: It could. It might be. We haven’t decided yet, because we’ve written upwards of 12 to 14 songs and we’re going to let the producer tell us, “Hey, these are your best six,” and just let him make that decision. But it’s very possible. We like this rendition of it, we just haven’t been able to nail down whether it’ll be on there yet.

Kyle, when we spoke via email you had some interesting reasons for recording this song, do you want to expand on that?

Kyle: Sure, a big thing that we see a whole lot in our culture, is worship bands only playing Chris Tomlin, and Hillsong type stuff – pretty much all of the really mainstream youth Christian songs. And I think a lot is missed out when we skip over hymns that really accurately reflect the gospel.

Hunter: Also, hymns are the songs that brought us to where we are now, and we want to be respectful of that. And that’s not bagging on anyone who’s written contemporary worship songs; I mean, we write them all the time. But the foundation for where the music is today [is hymns], and not that it started with this specific song, but it’s obviously a big part of where we are now.

Kyle: Yeah that’s a big thing. I mean a lot of our appeal right now is to youth because we’ve been a Disciple Now kind of band, we’ve been a youth group and youth camp kind of band. We want to step out of that box, and what we’re trying to do with Nothing But the Blood is to let people know that we aren’t just that kind of band. It will hopefully allow older generations to see where we’re coming from and that we’re not trying to push them aside and only cater to the contemporary style. We’re trying to bring the youth and the adults together; we’re trying to show the kids that the songs their parents like are actually really good, and we’re trying to show the adults and the youth that they can worship in the same room together without it being weird. We want to see the whole church together in worship.

What was filming the video like?

Hunter: Well the song is almost us anchoring ourselves to this one ideal, but actually the room that we did it in is really important to my family. This sanctuary is where my wife’s grandparents actually got married. And all the stain glass windows that you see in the video are dedicated to her great, great grandmother and things like that. So it’s not just about the song, but in many different ways [the video] shows that we want to start with the very roots of who we are and start with our church even. And to just signify that we recognize and are very appreciative of what we’ve been given and of all the talents of the people around us.